


Strength

by Corker



Series: Broken Dolls [11]
Category: Dragon Age
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-06
Updated: 2013-01-06
Packaged: 2017-11-23 23:18:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/627621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corker/pseuds/Corker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Isabela's plan to confront Castillon goes very wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strength

“Bitch!” Velasco cursed as Isabela wriggled to drop another pinch of the glitterdust she was using to mark their progress. He dropped her on her ass on the cobblestones “Fine, I’ll make this easy.”

 _Oh, shit._ That was about all she had time to think before his boot connected with her temple and the world went black.

\------------------

“I don’t see the next marker.” Hawke stood poised, ready for trouble, just her head swiveling to check again down the various alleyways. “Anyone?”

“Nothing,” Aveline reported grimly.

“No.” The fact that Varric answered simply, instead of with a joke, spoke to his worry.

“It must be here. She wouldn’t just stop leaving the trail.” Merrill summoned a tiny ball of light, even though Hawke and Aveline hated it when she did things like that inside the city, and sent it flying around the hex they were in, praying that Dirthamen would illuminate the location of the dust.

“Split up,” Hawke decided. She assigned them each a section of the docks to cover. “Then report back to that idiotic statue. We’ll meet there and then run to the rescue.”

“What if none of us -”

“That’s Step Four, Aveline. We’re on Step One. Now, go! Move it, people!”

\------------------

Merrill ran like the wind that blew through the Korcari Wilds in the winter. This Castillon must be a very bad man, for Isabela to have been running from him for so long. And now he had her, tucked away in some ship or shack on the docks like a secret cavern upon a haunted mountain, and she could not bear the thought that she might be too late again.

There were sounds coming from that warehouse. Odd, because usually things were closed down at the docks at night. But Merrill had been here often enough to learn that people up to illegal things were often busy into the dark hours. She should try and check before leading a charge back here. But she couldn’t take too long about it. If it were the wrong place, she needed to be on to the next one. Those crates... laying her staff at the base of the wall, she clambered up a pile of wooden crates to peer tiptoe through the small, high window.

 _Isabela!_ The ugly man from the Blooming Rose held her with her arms behind her back, while some other man leaned forward to laugh in her face. Merrill’s eyes widened and all thoughts of waiting for Hawke and the others fled. She half-slid, half-fell off the crates, skidded around the corner and threw her shoulder into the door.

She bounced back, landing on her rump in the street. _Locked door. That’s why there’s Hawke and Varric._ But the door opened of its own accord, and some of Castillon’s Antivan pirate-slaver-smugglers wasted no time grabbing her before she could gain her feet. They hauled her inside and shoved her toward Castillon so that she stumbled. “You let her go!” she demanded of the laughing man.

The Antivan looked her over, smirking. “What is this?” Castillon asked. “A friend of yours?”

“I owe her money,” Isabela improvised, staring intently at her. “Just toss her back out the door and she’ll be on her way.”

Merrill shook her head, then used her best Keeper’s Glare on Castillon. “We will _both_ be on our way, if you’re at all clever. And you’ll leave Isabela alone from now on.”

The Antivan chuckled. “Ah, such brave words! Do you understand, little elf, where you are?”

Merrill blinked at him, power thrumming in her veins. “Do _you?_ ”

“Merrill...” Isabela would have rubbed her forehead if sodding Velasco didn’t have her arms pinned.

“Well!” Castillon brightened in a way that was entirely unhealthy. “This makes it ever so much more _fun_.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, looking from one woman to the other. “Should I take her and make you watch?” he asked Isabela.

Isabela’s guts turned to water, although she managed a bored eye-roll. Merrill _still_ looked angry, not frightened, even when one of Castillon’s men grabbed her from behind. Was it really possible she didn’t understand what he was threatening? Or were Hawke and the others close behind her? “You can’t tell me my opinion on this really matters,” she scoffed, trying to keep him talking. “You’re going to do whatever you want.”

“I think I’d like to see you try,” Merrill said, very softly.

“Well, she’s for it!” Castillon guffawed. “But I admit, I’ve always wondered what it would be like to tumble the Queen of the Eastern Seas.”

“You couldn’t have said that right off?” Isbela asked crossly. “Let’s get it done, then.”

“Isabela, no!” Merrill tugged against the grip of the man holding her, eyes wide with horror. “You don’t have to do it.”

Velasco let her go and she shrugged, rolling her shoulders. “It’s just sex, Kitten. Besides,” she added with a scornful glance at Castillon, “I bet I’ll hardly feel it.”

“I came to help you!” Merrill sounded positively frantic.

“Very touching,” the slaver agreed, taking Isabela by the arm to steer her up the rickety stairs to the warehouse’s second floor. He pointed at his second. “Since Isabela is being ever so _accomodating_ , treat her little kitten kindly - for now.”

“No!” Merrill had tears in her eyes, and Isabela for the life of her couldn’t understand why.

\-------------

The captain’s quarters were hardly luxurious - a straw-stuffed bolster tossed atop some crates served for his bed. The bastard locked the door behind them and disappeared the key; he was _also_ clever enough to have left his blades elsewhere. And in a one-on-one contest of brute strength, Castillon would win over her. “Right, so,” Isabela said, willing herself to feel as nonchalant as she sounded, “what’s it going to be, then?”

Castillon shoved her back against the wall and mashed his lips to hers; she just waited. When he drew back, it was with narrowed, suspicious eyes, but he said, “I hear you like to be on top. Let’s see you fuck yourself on my cock, then.”

“Get it out of your pants, already,” she shot back, a glow of confidence replacing the shaky nerves she’d been hiding. Be on top? Out of all the frankly awful things she might have imagined could happen up here, this was one of the least awful. On top and riding him, it was just _a_ cock, could be anyone’s, could be a toy. And while she was usually choosy about her partners - just because she’d had as many as she liked didn’t mean they weren’t all up to her standards - she wasn’t exactly innocent of anonymous, impersonal encounters. Just a body, just a cock, something to play with to amuse herself; and if she drew it out long enough, Hawke and Varric and Lady Man-Hands would break down the doors and get Merrill out of here.

“Just as soon as we get you out of this rag you call a shirt, love,” Castillon sneered, running rough hands up under her top. She grabbed the hem and yanked it off over her head, unwilling to even give him the satisfaction of undressing her.

“Look. Breasts,” she sighed, looking down at them. “What about... I don’t know, my nose? It’s a nice nose. No one ever wants to see that.” Her jaw tightened while he groped at her, and she tried to will the tension away. _Just hands. Not terribly skilled hands. Does he think he’s kneading bread?_

“You like that, don’t you, you great sodding whore?” Castillon leered at her. “Come on, let’s see what you can really do.”

\------------

“Get her knife,” the sailor holding Merrill’s wrist said.

“Her what?”

“She went for a knife, you moron! Why’d you think I grabbed her?”

“Cor, because she’s a pretty little armful of elf, eh?” Another of Castillon’s men stepped in too close and relieved her of the small sharp blade she carried at her waist.

“Castillon said to let her be,” the first sailor said, letting go of her. 

Merrill danced back from both of them, chafing her wrist but staring with eyes as dark as a storm at sea. “I’ll have that back, thank you,” she said, gesturing toward her knife.

The man laughed, a coarse and ugly sound. “Now I just took it and you want it back? And what do you think you’d do with it, eh?”

“All that on her face means she’s Dalish,” the first sailor cautioned. “They hate humans and’ll die fighting ‘em.”

“I don’t _hate humans_ although I think I might be hating _you_.” She put her hand out. “Give it to me.”

The man with her knife, still laughing, held it out blade-first, his hand wrapped firmly around the hilt. “Sure, then. Go on and take it.”

Merrill stepped forward. “I shall.” She grabbed the blade, felt it bite into her palm, felt the stopped-up _power_ begin to flow. She drew it back slowly, blood dripping to the ground; the man who’d grabbed her cursed and turned and ran. He knew who the Dalish were; perhaps he knew a blood mage when he saw one as well.

“Did you see that?” the other chuckled, turned to where his friend had been. “Stupid little knife-ear actually -”

Then he stopped speaking, because his lungs were no longer expelling nor drawing breath. All around her, Castillon’s men froze in place, their muscles betraying them, their own blood turned into a weapon destroying them from the inside. Reddish-purple mottling spread under their sun-tanned skins, and the whites of their eyes turned crimson. Silently, helplessly - they died.

After they fell, one after the other, to the ground, Merrill snatched her knife off the corpse at her feet and bolted up the stairs.

\-------------

_Nrgh._ Wasn’t exactly comfortable, fitting it into her, since awkward breast-squeezes didn’t quite get her hot. Still, hurt a damn sight less than a dagger to the thigh, or a dagger just about anyplace else, really.

“Don’t just sit there.” Castillon gripped her hips and flexed experimentally up into her. “I want to see you doing the work - you know, like how you _didn’t_ do the _other_ work I asked of you. _I’m_ going to lay here and _watch_ you do it.”

Isabela leaned forward slightly, planted one hand on his chest. It made her feel like she was pinning him down, in control. Just a cock to ride. “Then be quiet and let me _work_ ,” she purred, because this would go much more easily if Castillon would shut up.

“I’ll say what I like, you bi-- _hnnngh_.”

“Like that one?” Isabela rolled her hips again, added a little swivel. “Here it comes again.”

It didn’t seem like he’d last long. Within a few moments of her starting her gyrations, his breathing was harsh and, despite his insistence on making her do the work, his hips were jerking up of their own accord. “You’re...” His gasp tore her attention from the spot on the wall where she’d fixed it. His face was an odd combination of familiar hatred and lust, but with a layer of genuine bewilderment there. “You’re not...”

“Not what, sweet thing? Crying? Ashamed? _Bothered?_ ” She ground down on him, felt him buck again. “As if you were worth getting bothered over.”

 _”Bitch.”_ He elbowed himself half-up, then stopped to suck air as she rode him harder. “I’ll... I’ll... you’ll _pay_ just as soon as I...”

The door rattled in its frame. Isabela and Castillon both turned their heads to look at it, one in hope and the other in irritation. Castillon, thinking one of his men was about to interrupt, seized Isabela’s hips and thrust, hard and desperate, to finish himself off.

There was a great smash; splinters of wood exploded in a dusty cloud around the small boulder that flew through the door. Isabela ducked on reflex, throwing herself down onto Castillon as the fist of stone whizzed past, shattering into gravel against the far wall.

His fingers clenched and he shouted, involuntarily burying himself deeper into her as he came. He arched up from the bed - then bent farther, shuddering as his muscles spasmed. His eyes were wide, lust turned to pure horror and Isabela could _feel_ his bones snapping as he convulsed under her. She threw herself off the rough pallet, rolling and coming up in a crouch on the dirty floor.

Blood oozed from the slaver’s ears, mouth and his sightless eyes. Isabela turned, glimpsed Merrill through the ruined door. The elf’s vallaslin were dark against skin that had turned fishbelly pale. “You didn’t have to _do_ that,” she half-sobbed, just before she toppled over.

\------------

Hawke and Varric heard Aveline’s metallic jog well before the guard-captain came into sight. She shook her head as she came in, then confirmed, “Nothing,” as she neared the other two.

“So either we missed them,” Varric said, “or they’re on the far east docks.” That’s where Merrill had gone.

“Blast,” Aveline muttered. “We stay here and we’re losing time. We go there and we might miss Merrill. This is the meeting point... but I don’t want to stand around with my thumb up my ass.”

“I know how this story goes,” Varric nodded. “We go there, she comes here...” He grimaced and looked appealingly up at Hawke. “But I don’t know how long Castillon’s going to gloat before he -”

“I got it,” Hawke interrupted. The tiny assassin pinched the bridge of her nose for just a second before looking up sharply. “Let’s move,” she decided. The other two nodded and they took off at a jog. Aveline had point, until Hawke darted in front of her and held up a hand. “Shh,” she ordered. 

They fell silent, and then all three heard it: a bosun’s call, the high, piping whistle used to relay orders around a ship. It carried like crazy, even above the roar of a storm, and this one was piping a wild, frantic tune that sounded unlike any call they’d ever heard here on the docks. 

One quick shared glance, and the three were off again, following the siren call. It took them to the very shadow of the Gallows, then down a dark alley, around a bend and -

\- Isabela, mostly naked, cheeks shining silver in what moonlight made it this far into the gloom. She dropped the whistle with a gasp, reached out to Varric and Hawke. “You’re here,” she panted. “Knew you’d be about. You have to help Merrill.”

“What’re we going into?” Hawke rapped.

Isabela turned and darted back through the warehouse door. “Nothing,” she called back, beckoning. “Castillon’s dead, his men are all dead. She needs healing!”

“Uh-oh.” Varric already had a healing potion in his gloved hand as they hurried inside. “These don’t heal everything, Hawke.”

Specifically, they didn’t restore the life essence Merrill drew on when she worked blood magic.

“Maybe we’ll be lucky and it’s just a sucking chest wound,” the assassin muttered.

Merrill wasn’t far within, sprawled prone on a catwalk outside a shattered door. Isabela dropped to her knees beside the semi-conscious elf. “Hawke’s here, Kitten,” she said, twisting her hands nervously. “She’s got potions, you’ll be all right.” She looked up as the others crouched or knelt around Merrill. “She’ll be all right,” the pirate repeated.

“Sit her up,” Varric instructed with quiet authority, and Isabela lifted Merrill half into her lap. “Daisy?” Varric patted her cheek. “Wake up. Time to take your medicine.”

“V-Varric?” Her big green eyes fluttered. “I’m so sorry. I found Isabela but there wasn’t time...”

“Sh. Here, drink this.” He held the crystal phial to her pale, thin lips.

Merrill turned her head slightly away. “It won’t help, Varric.”

“It won’t hurt, either. Humor me, Daisy.” 

“Just drink the damn thing, _please_.” Merrill gasped and craned her head to look at the source of the choked voice behind her. Isabela? Isabela was crying? “You can’t die because of my stupid plan. You just can’t.”

“Isabela.” Merrill reached a cold, long-fingered hand up to trace the lines of dampness on the woman’s cheeks. She had meant to say, _Why couldn’t you have just believed me? I would have gone with him and destroyed him with magic before the door had even closed. I’m not a fool and I am not weak and why will no one whom I love ever believe otherwise?_ But instead she asked, “Are you crying for me?”

“What?” The question seemed to take her by surprise. The pirate scrubbed at her own face hurriedly, as if she hadn’t even realized it was wet with tears. “What do you mean, am I -”

“Don’t even.” Aveline’s voice was steel. “Maker’s breath, this isn’t the time for it.”

There were three heartbeats of silence. Isabela wanted to say, _It was just sex and I’ll probably try and drink away that particular memory but it’s not the worst thing that’s happened to me, not by a long shot. You should have let me handle it and just waited for Hawke._ But Aveline’s angry eyes insisted that she answer the question. “I came back for you,” Isabela said, one hand hovering anxiously by Merrill’s cheek, as if to stroke it tenderly would presume too much. “Both times. It was you.”

Merrill smiled wanly, and with her torn and bloodied hand grasped Isabela’s, caught hold of the tail-end of her life-force that had been negligently slipping away into the Fade. “You should have said, lethallan.”

“This is all very touching, but potion, please?” Varric wheedled.

“Yes, Varric,” Merrill sighed, obediently drinking the sweet-bitter liquor he tipped down her throat. “But I think I’ll be all right. With some rest and good soup.”

“I’m not exactly convinced,” Hawke said dryly. “Anything else we can do for her here, Varric?”

“Are you injured, Daisy?”

“Just my hand.”

“Then... let’s get the blazes out of here.” Varric straightened and nodded at Aveline, who gathered Merrill up into her arms. Setting Bianca down, he shrugged off his jacket and tossed it at Isabela. “There you go, Rivaini.” He stopped, gears in his head turning as obviously as if they’d been a part of Bianca’s mechanisms. “Shit. Are _you_...” The dwarf was uncharacteristically at a loss for words. Hawke and Aveline looked back at her, eyes widening as the implications of her state of undress sank in.

Isabela shrugged the leather duster on. It didn’t exactly fit _well_ , but something cut to fit Varric’s barrel chest adequately covered hers, too. “I’m fine,” she said firmly, as if intention could make it true. “Don’t worry about me. Let’s go.”


End file.
